New York Lawyer
October 16, 2001

Q:
How can a mid-level associate get a job in human resources?

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A:
HR is one of those disciplines that, if not exactly welcoming career-shifting lawyers with open arms and a warm meal, has so many bridges across to law that a sizable number of legal careers get re-treaded along this route.

That said, human resources is a big country with a lot of different provinces. Saying, �I want to go into HR� is a lot like a traveler saying, �I want to go to Europe.� It helps to know something about the topography of each region to focus your transition efforts. Also relevant, of course, is the type of law you�ve been practicing. Potential employers freak out less if someone offers some subject-matter expertise and experience that translates into a fairly flat learning curve in the new setting. Your strong grasp of generation-skipping taxation or the regulations governing the interstate transportation of chickens is less likely to strike a responsive chord than your familiarity with employment law and employee relations, your understanding of statutory mandates such as the Americans With Disabilities Act, your knowledge of qualified and non-qualified pension plans, or your experience drafting employment contracts for senior executives.

As a generalization, litigators may be viewed somewhat askance by potential HR employers if they create the impression that they have adversarial temperaments. Human resources, by and large, tries to be the land of collaboration, consensus, trust and harmony. However, litigation experience focused on cases involving HR-related issues can be like solid gold; clearly one way to understand how to do things right is to have extensive experience with all the things that can happen when they go wrong.

HR people often divide their country to �hard-side HR� and �soft-side HR.� Hard side activity includes most of the technical, administrative and/or detail-oriented disciplines that historically were lumped under the label �personnel.� Success at these disciplines requires some particular kind of technical expertise. Accordingly, one avenue into a human resources position can be built on the foundation of existing subject-matter expertise in some HR-related legal discipline: labor law, employment law, statutory compliance, benefits and compensation, ERISA, etc.

�Soft side HR� functions tend to focus on process -- consulting skills rather than a tightly-focused area of technical expertise. They tend to focus on the evaluation, development, motivation and behavior of people, projects, teams and whole organizations. You can imagine an umbrella category heading, for example, called something like �human resources development.� Under this might fall a variety of other buzz-words such as organizational development, leadership development, training and development, executive development and assimilation, team building, retention, performance planning and evaluation, strategic HR planning, competency-mapping, etc.

These roles tend to build heavily on skills in analysis, planning, persuasion, commuications and project management -- all of which lawyers generally are inferred to have by virtue of having gone to law school and learned to dissect and analyze multi-variable issues and problems. I know a lot of lawyers who have networked their way into these process-oriented roles within corporations and picked up needed experience along the way. This usually has involved dropping a few rungs down the org chart and taking a hit in pay, but the dues that must be paid often are short and not terribly demoralizing. The career paths are there � both in soft-side and hard-side HR.

The HR generalists at the top of the corporate HR pecking order usually have toiled in a variety of roles � hard and soft. Moreover, these days the �hi-pots� (that�s HR speak for high-potential employees) and fast-trackers frequently have pursued some form of advanced study in an HR-related discipline. There are Master�s and Ph.D. programs in Human Resources Management, Organizational Development, Neurolinguistic Programming, and Leadership Development. There are extension courses you can take in subjects such as Compensation and Benefits, and Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS). You can study at home, online, in evening programs, in both degree programs and �I-want-to-learn-this-particular-discipline� courses.

In addition to supplementing your marketable skills, such advanced study also demonstrates that you are highly motivated to learn what HR demands, rather than expecting to stroll in from law and take over the place. To get focused, I strongly recommend that you cultivate networking contacts in different areas of a large, resource-rich, highly-specialized corporate HR department. Ask each person how they got there � what the entry credentials or barriers to entry were. Ask each why they got there � what combination of focus, luck and default steered them toward their current role. Ask them what they love about their jobs and what they hate about them. Listen hard for skills and abilities that �cross-talk� easily with the roles and responsibilities you�ve already handled as a lawyer. Subscribe to the magazines HR professionals read and learn to speak their dialect. As long as you still practice, see if you can�t wrangle assignments that give you exposure to some HR-related function or issue.

Don�t forget the possibility of consulting. Remember, by working in a law firm, you already have been a consultant, i.e., someone who sells time for money. That gives you an advantage when angling for roles in the variety of HR consulting firms throughout the country.

Either in-house or in a consulting role, the move from law to HR is doable, and it is one of those areas where your legal training and background are likely to be accorded full faith and credit.

Sincerely,
Douglas B. Richardson
President, The Richardson Group